


a wasp with her wings outstretched

by antebellumera



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Major Character Death: Mason Verger, Margot Verger Character Study, Margot is a little broken and Freddie has good intentions sometimes, No connection to Season 3, Non-consensual Incest (Past), Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Season 2, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Substantial References to Mason and Molson Verger, Very minor references to other characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-10 03:22:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11118876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antebellumera/pseuds/antebellumera
Summary: "Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”Freddie Lounds is mercury and Margot has never been this desperate to be burned.





	a wasp with her wings outstretched

**Author's Note:**

> originally written sometime in late 2014. unpublished (and terribly unedited) until now. i polished it up a bit because my writing style has changed but i'm hoping the differences aren't too choppy, etc. 
> 
> note that the smut in this one-shot is mild-ish. it's not explicit but it's there. also note that the non-con warning is there re: mason's past abuse of margot and not for the margot/freddie parts!
> 
> also: yes, marlana is the best, but i used to have many feelings for margrounds/marlounds before season 3 came around and in an alternate reality (where alana ends up with bedelia or beverly) i think that margot/freddie would have been a wonderfully complex ship.

_**till then, think of the world** _

 

 

 

Margot Verger is the only attendee at Mason Verger’s funeral.

This is not wholly true. There are other people here, important corporate figures and rich business partners. They are all old and shake their heads and talk about how old Verger’s son had so much potential and oh, the universe is cruel for what happened to him, isn’t it so ironic, it’s just such a waste.

They’re not really here.

But Margot Verger is.

She is the only one allowed to look at his ugly tatter of a face at the viewing. She is, in fact, the only one at the viewing itself. A young man in a red suit, an employee, stands guard at the door to keep away prying eyes; he does this after she hands him a one hundred dollar bill. Her lips are red and her face is powdered and she wears a black pantsuit because she will not show her ankles for her brother. As she looks down at him, she purses her mouth together until it’s just a thin strip of scarlet on white and then she turns, signaling for the funeral home employee to close the casket. He has received instructions to avert his eyes as best as he can, and he does.

_Money can make you leer. Money can make you fear._

It is here, at the funeral, that she feels her feet planted firmly on the ground. Everyone around her, in their elegant grieving attire and their faux faces, may as well be particles in the air for all that their presence means nothing. They are keeping with appearances, they have reputations to uphold. Margot supposes that she is keeping with appearances, to some extent — what would the newspapers and news websites have to say if she failed to attend the late Verger heir’s funeral? — but it is more than that. There is much more gravity to her attendance than expectation.

One day she might be able to define what that gravity is.

Everything has been left to her. She made sure of that and she isn’t proud of _how_ she made sure of that, but she is damn proud that she _did_ make of sure it.

Now the procession reaches its conclusion, and Margot stands up after the rest of the guests. They rest hands on her shoulders and wish her the best, they apologize for her loss as if they are responsible for it and Margot doesn’t smile. She nods, and murmurs gratitude, and they pass. She is the last person left by the freshly dug grave, and for a ludicrous ten seconds she imagines Mason crawling out of the soft dirt and grinning at her with the tedious remnants of what was once his lips, the drooping dry hanging flesh swinging from the gaping hole that was his nose and the chunks of skin on bone that used to be cheeks; he reaches out to her with bloodied hands and his unruly tendrils of brown sway in the harsh winds and Margot takes his hand because that is what she knew to do in her early years.

_Lips on her ankles. Teeth biting into her calves. Being eaten alive without being consumed. Being torn open with prying fingers. Being cut into pieces as small as the specks of stars in the night sky, and crying against the light of the sky. Set her free._

Papa never listened when she crawled into his bed and asked him to save her from the monster who crept into her room at night. A light shove and a voice told her, “We have the best security system money can buy. Monsters can’t touch you.”

Mama’s grave caught her tears. It was more than her father ever did.

A gust of wind of the strongest variety saves her, and she closes her eyes before turning on her heels and marching down the greenery, towards her car, her head held high and her nose pointed ambitiously at the sky. She won’t look back. This is over now.

She unlocks her car — from Mason’s personal collection; she’s claimed it as her own now, she’s claimed everything as her own — and opens the driver’s door. An out-of-nowhere voice startles her but she does not show it.

“Miss Verger?”

Margot turns, and she meets a strange, foreign pair of blue irises that look upon her intently and dare her to say something.

So she does.

“Who’s asking?”

She is allowed to suspect that her brother left surprises for her in the event of his death.

“Not asking, but confirming,” says the blue-eyed woman. Her cheeks are sharply cut. Margot imagines that she is cut from marble. Her white skin is taut against her bone structure; beautiful woman no longer unnerve her. She has frequented enough seedy bars donning various wigs and sunglasses to understand the right way to look one in the eye.

(Beautiful women, at any rate, have told her that she herself is a beautiful woman. She is yet to believe them. Do beautiful women attract monstrosities in the form of nighttime lurkers?)

“And who is confirming?” Margot has a snarling bite in her voice. Habit from her last few months with Mason.

“Freddie Lounds. I’m a journalist,” she says, holding a hand out to her. Margot doesn’t take it for a second, she only stares. Then she shakes her hand, tentatively. Freddie appears to be pleased.

“I can’t fathom why you’re here.” Margot looks away, taking her hand back and crossing her arms across her black blazer.

“This is an inconvenient time, I imagine,” Freddie says, “but I’ve been told about you, Miss Verger, and I’m interested in offering you a deal.”

“I’m not interested,” says Margot. “Who sent you, Miss Lounds?”

“Nobody ever sends me,” says Freddie, with a raised eyebrow and a proud little scoff. “I do as I please, and I see to what I wish. I’ve been seeking you out for a bit of time now and haven’t been able to come by your contact information. You’re a very private person, Miss Verger.”

“I’ve already talked to the local newspaper about my brother’s death,” Margot looks at Freddie in the eyes again, narrowing her own into slits. “They’ll print my tribute to dear Mason tomorrow morning. I’d like to leave now, if you don’t mind.”

“You’ve got it wrong,” says Freddie, placing her hands in her turquoise coat and tapping the blunt heel of her dark leather boots. Her hair is lovely, Margot thinks. Nothing else about her besides her face seems to be, particularly her eyes. “Mason Verger is headlining news, he was very rich. But I don’t want to tell mainstream news, Miss Verger, I want to tell your story.”

Margot goes ashen, and she turns her back on Freddie Lounds. “This is a dead end, I’m afraid. There’s no story to tell. I’m the last, grieving Verger survivor. Nothing more to the image.”

“Images are treacherous, at any rate. I’m very efficient,” says Freddie. Margot’s lips twitch. “It will just be an article, nothing more. I can tell the world about your brother, your _real_ brother.”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Margot says. Her eyes catch an old man stumbling to his car, a ruined little wreck of a thing. He is hunched over and squints to see. “They’ll turn over in their graves and never let you live it down.”

“Bit poetic, are we?” Amusement plays on Freddie’s smooth lips. Margot sees it because she turns around to look at her once more. “Miss Verger, you shouldn’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do. Do you want this? Think it over.”

“How do you know?” Margot asks, something catching her voice and making it come out strangled and twisted but strong, always strong—she will never be weak again. “How did you come to know what you _think_ you know?”

“I’m capable of putting two and two together, I can assure you, and when something didn’t seem right in the Mason Verger footnote of Will Graham’s full account of his experiences with Dr. Lecter, I came up with four,” Freddie says, smoothly. “He briefed me on the full situation. I’ve been very helpful in the hunt thus far, did you know?”

“Dr. Lecter fled the country two months ago,” says Margot, raising a carefully done eyebrow. “You might have been more helpful.”

Freddie bristles, slightly. “I’ve got the potential for more, but the big men are only comfortable with using me as an instrumental and invisible proxy—a phenomenon that I’m sure you’re acquainted with.”

“Sure. What woman isn’t?”

“That’s the spirit,” says Freddie, with an affirming nod. “Now—”

“Are you always so candid, Miss Lounds?” Margot leans against the edge of the seat and her arms are still crossed and she thinks about how she’s only several feet away from her brother’s grave and she wants to be a million light-years away. “Do you have animosity towards build-up?”

“I have a remarkable compass that I use for judgment,” says Freddie. The glimmer in her eyes reflects the darkening day. “And I didn’t feel that you were one for skirting around or sidling up to the matter instead of lunging right for it. Am I correct?”

“To some extent,” says Margot, tentatively. “You’re very presumptuous.”

“I think you’re misinterpreting me,” Freddie’s face is turning the color of Margot’s lipstick, slowly but surely. “Aren’t you the one being presumptuous?”

“I’m not the one asking for what you’re asking for,” says Margot, and in the breeze a strand of hair pulls away from her combed back up-do and threatens her face.

“I just want to tell a story, Miss Verger.” Impatience is beginning to crawl into the shadows in Freddie’s face, growing with the advancing night. “A story that people will want to hear.”

“And if I don’t want to tell that story to anyone, you in particular?” Adrenaline latches itself into the pits of Margot’s stomach, and steadily treks up to her heart and her mind. “You’re asking for something that you cannot rightfully claim.”

“I'm chasing truth,” says Freddie, tugging at her black scarf. Her hands are enveloped in black leather gloves and her tone is enveloped in malice, albeit strained malice. Margot fancies herself a little taken by her, because she is not vain but she is not modest and she has little experience but she has _enough_. “There’s ugliness in every righteous truth, and I'm a firm believer in maintaining that ugliness.”

“There is a lot of truth out there that isn’t spoken for,” says Margot, slowly. “Have you considered exposing that? Start with Dr. Lecter, for one. I’m sans legacy and sans merit, for all that anyone cares; murder makes for better entertainment.”

“You would be a hero, Miss Verger,” Freddie says, and there’s the rising of an argument emerging from her diction. “A woman of the day. An _inspiration_.”

“And you want to craft me into that.” Margot turns her head up and looks at the clouds in the orange sky, dashes of purple and the teasing of stars and heavenly bodies hidden in the flicker of the eye. “I’ve always known that I’m not quite destined for those titles. I’m not a tragic hero, Miss Lounds. I’m a victim of bad parenting like all the other crying children. Although, at one point in my life I did dream of being a princess. Can you craft me into that, instead? I’m fond of crowns and elegant dresses.”

“An inspiration,” Freddie sounds like she is on repeat when she talks, like she’s going through previously recorded actions because damn, she’s had her own game twisted into her mind for some time and Margot finds grand solace in this. “An inspiration, Miss Verger.”

Margot shakes her head, and takes her place in the car, closing the door before Freddie can protest. But she rolls down the window after starting the vehicle, and she turns to look at the other woman expectantly with stoic eyes and an unimpressed crease sitting on the corner of her lip.

“Perhaps I’ll just leave you to think about it, then,” Freddie says, doing a motion with her head that says that she recognizes that this is taking her nowhere. Margot looks at her, unrelenting in her stare, and she picks it all apart as best as she can with her natural intuition—she isn’t used to shaking hands with a dead end, with a cul-de-sac, with a wall that blocks her in her everlasting strife. But that’s the real misjudgment. This woman isn’t in possession of something as plebian as strife.

“That would be best.” And she means it. She feels like this is a mini victory, of sorts, and her heart acts in a leap because it is her second one today. Burying her brother was a feat she always coveted, after all; now she has won this little quarrel as well, if it can be called that.

She’s willing to sign a treaty. She adds, “Here’s my cell phone, Miss Lounds. I’ll send you the meeting details if you put your number in. I’m willing to have a chat with you, and that’s all that I’m offering. Offering, not promising. The moment you say something that I don’t like, I _will_ end the exchange.”

Her reward is the _o_ that Freddie’s mouth forms as a reactionary response to what she is hearing Margot say. It comes to Margot’s attention that the woman had already surrendered and she thinks about whether she has ever surrendered before. Margot knows why she’s agreeing to this—she has to take any opportunity to supplement her image, and she does not trust this woman to not go out and let something slip.

She doesn’t know how loose her mouth may be.

“You won’t find yourself regretting this,” Freddie says, her long fingers tapping digits onto the sleek surface of the touch screen mobile.

“Let’s hope not,” says Margot.

 

 

**_thou art noble_ **

 

 

He found her naked in one of the stables with their maid. It was the seventeenth year of her life. Her birthday, an event that went unnoticed by the elder Molson Verger and his protégé of a son.

(Olga. A stern, rough name somehow, by some odd alignment of the universe, belonged to the most gentle woman Margot had ever met. Her hair was flaxen and her eyes matched Margot’s hair; she spoke with a melody of a Belarusian accent, she was nineteen and her father slaughtered pigs with formulaic movements. When she licked up Margot’s stomach it made her insides churn. She had thought that no one would ever want to touch her after Mason carved himself so resolutely into the crannies of her body that ought never have been his to claim. A woman’s touch was like exploding and then being put back together, delicately, all at once. It wasn’t chaotic and full of sharp pain like Mason’s fingernails on her shoulders, eyes open the whole time. It felt like coming home, and Margot had never known home.)

Slapped across the face a dozen times, she was dragged out by her hair and thrown to the ground outside.

_Sleep outside tonight. No better than a pig. Worse than a pig, because they have a roof over their heads._

She never saw Olga again. The pair, Olga and her father, disappeared overnight.

Papa slapped her again in the morning and told her she could stay if she went back into the stable. _Surprise for you in there_. _A test. Prove your loyalty. Prove you’re still worthy of being a Verger._

It wasn’t so hard to let Mason tear out strands of her hair and rip her open again.

He would have never let her stay put together for long, anyway.

Biting her throat, Mason whispered: “I don’t – want to touch you like this ever again.”

They both knew why.

His personal brand of conversion therapy had failed.

“You made me like this,” her brother accused. “You couldn’t get rid of my sins because you’re too full of them yourself. You stained me. You brought plague into the house. You’re disgusting.”

“The only person in the world I’m responsible for,” said Margot, eyes looking into a pair identical to her own, “is myself. I’m no more disgusting than you are.”

The bite makes her bleed. She bandages herself up later, ice pressed onto her neck. She decides it was worth it.

It’d be a stretch to say her demons are exorcised.

But one of them will never haunt her again.

 

**_for we will shake him or worse days endure_ **

 

 

“Your estate is gorgeous. I grew up seeing Muskrat Farm on postcards, and yet I've never seen it in person before now.”

Freddie Lounds looks crisp as the sunny day, prim dark green suit adorned with a black silk scarf pressed tightly against her curve of a body. Margot looks at her with intent for a moment before looking away, resting her eyes on the house several feet away.

“I didn’t build it,” Margot says. “I don’t even see that it’s tended to; the staff have been here for so long, they just keep doing what they’ve always done. I don’t think I could make them stop if I wanted.”

At that, Freddie seems perturbed. The brunette of a Verger grins. It takes her by surprise, the stark knowledge that her mouth still remembers how to do that. Judy made her smile unabashedly all the time. Two years have passed since.

But Judy couldn’t handle the story behind the scars on her back, the cuts on her inner thighs and the way that she sometimes cradled herself away from touch without warning.

_It's not you. It’s post-traumatic — you know what it is.  I can’t help it._

_You make me feel unwanted._

_There’s nothing I want more than you._

_You push me away sometimes._

_When you get rough, it reminds me of—_

“What made you change your mind back then? When you said no, and then said yes?”

Being underneath Freddie’s gaze shakes her back into awareness. The little woman — truthfully, Margot is only two inches superior to Freddie, but it is superior nonetheless and it's an increased difference given Margot's heels — has a feverish look about her.

“I don’t know,” says Margot. It’s not the truth. “Maybe I thought I would get lonely.”

“Well, I’m damn glad for that.” Startling, how frank the ginger can be. But sugar coating tastes bitter on Margot’s tongue, leaves her aching and uncomfortable. She can appreciate the way that Freddie only voices what is on her mind. 

She takes her into the house through the stable entrance, just so she can watch the way that Freddie reacts to the horses. Pepper, Olive, Petunia, Ludwig. Freddie is followed by soft little noises, little neighs. Margot doesn’t know how to feel about the way that she pays them no mind.

“I don’t have much time.” It’s a lie. Margot has all the time in the world. “I spoke to Will Graham about you. He forwarded a message from a most esteemed Dr. Alana Bloom. Both said to ignore you, but here I am anyway, so give me a reason to trust you.”

The living room is grand, lights low and furs draped over every arm chair and loveseat. The fireplace is barren, the diamond chandelier glows against the closed windows. Margot could take Freddie to one of the offices, to the dining table. She feels, however, most sane here. If she treats this too much like a business meeting, she’ll suffocate. It would make her feel like her father. Make her feel like Mason.

And Freddie wastes no time pulling a notebook out of her brown leather briefcase, a red ribbon on the center of the strap, and sitting down on a plush black armchair against white fur.

“I know my fair share of trauma,” Freddie sets in with words that sound suspiciously rehearsed. Margot loses interest quickly. “I myself have been a victim of abuse. Not as extensive as your life, but certainly a few incidents.”

“You’re lying.”

Affronted, Freddie sits back. Her long fingers clench around her notebook. “That is a cruel accusation.”

“I don’t want to hear you ramble on about made-up trauma.” Her fist tightens in the pocket of her maroon silk drape, wrapped over her floor-length black dress. “You want my real sob story, so be real.”

Shifting through her metaphorical bag of arrows, Freddie chooses one; pulls it out, draws it back, shoots. “Tell me how long your father and brother abused you.”

That’s how it’s going to be.

Margot moves over to the fireplace, eyes fixed on the charred bits of nothingness scattered around blackened logs. If she sits, she’ll go crazy. “My brother was what Papa would have called ‘a dirty cocksucker’ or ‘a goddamn faggot’, if you’d prefer. Mama and Papa subscribed to very fundamentalist ideals — they wanted money, but they also wanted to be traditionalists. We were very aware of it, especially after Mama died. I was eleven when Mason decided that sex with his sister would cure him and seventeen when he realized it hadn’t worked.”

Her eyes, hollow with hurt, face a carefully postured Freddie Lounds. Her bony knee is crossed over an equally bony knee, sharp and dangerous. So regretfully _dangerous_. 

"Tell that to the world." Margot looks away, pins her gaze on the ceiling and flexes her fingers carefully at her sides. The ornate design twists in her view. "I'm almost willing to let you, because I know my brother left behind lawyers ready to fight for the Verger name if his dear sister ever decided to come clean. They would kill you or your career, though I don't know which you think is worse. But I won't let Mason hurt anyone else. I'm his last victim." 

"So that's why you actually asked me to come," says Freddie, pink lips pursed. She is treading so, so carefully. It unnerves Margot — the sudden change. "To warn me that if I choose to wax lyrical about Margot Verger, abuse survivor, I'll have big bad men come after me."

"I looked you up." How she hates the notion that Freddie now believes her to be compassionate. She doesn't want to be compassionate anymore. She wants to live for herself, live alone, ignore the whims of the world for as long she gets to stay in it. "You're UVA alumni. How does someone like you end up in a business like this?" 

"Bad judgment when it came to picking internships."

"That can't be all." 

Freddie looks at her. Piercing eyes, like a hawk. 

"I have a very limited sense of morality and tabloid journalism lets me exploit whomever — whatever I wish with few repercussions. I don't believe in uselessly ethical journalism if it means the truth never gets told."

"You don't subscribe to the concept of journalistic integrity."

"I have journalistic integrity and it's my own kind. It's called telling the _truth._ " 

"Immoral, but not amoral." 

"The media is meant to be a watchdog. What's a watchdog without a mean bite and snarl?" 

"So you think of yourself as a guardian angel for lost causes who get buried behind celebrity gossip and political scandals." 

"Not an angel. Just the vessel for one."

"Miss Lounds," begins Margot, unsure, mind reeling, "you don't get to tell my story. You never will." 

"Freddie." 

It hushes them both. 

But Freddie coughs, looks down. Repeats herself, clarifies. "Call me Freddie." 

"I'm just Margot, then, but I still don't want you as a vessel." 

Freddie seems to very carefully analyze the precise way to word that which is already skipping on her tongue towards her lips, the bottom of which she runs a small tongue over. It captures Margot for a moment. It surprises her. She wants to reach out and put her hand in Freddie's mouth just for a moment, to see what she would do. 

She doesn't.

"Not even with pseudonyms," muses Freddie, "you would be willing? The truth would be there. In some form, at least. Wouldn't that give you satisfaction?"

"Freddie, I got my satisfaction when I held a gun to my brother's head and had him rewrite his living will before taking him off life support." 

"I had my hunches about that. The papers said he killed his doctor, one of his lawyers, and then himself. You were wounded, too. The only survivor of his rampage in more ways than one." 

"There was far too much time on my hands and I know how to plan." 

"The evidence is naught."

"Deliberately." 

It takes Freddie a moment, but she sighs and puts her notebook in her bag. For a minute, Margot thinks that she's going to leave; her clear white hands reach up to her scarf like she's going to tighten it, secure it for the walk to her car and the ride back home. The thought disappears when Freddie unwraps the scarf instead, shaking her hair loose from its prior confines, pouring out like blood reflecting on water over the nape of her neck and the curve of her spear-like collarbones. 

"Maybe you can just tell me your story, then." 

Margot saunters over to the armchair across from Freddie's chosen seat, sizes her up, then sits down in a careful, slow movement. 

She tells her. 

 

 

_**for who is so firm that cannot be seduced?** _

 

 

This time, it is Margot's turn. Her turn to be the one asking for entrance. It's a little unequal; Freddie came to Muskrat Farm with an invitation, however grudgingly bestowed. Margot is sitting in one of her cars, parked outside of the motel Freddie told her she'd be at for awhile longer. She's testing the waters, waiting it out near Quantico until some sort of news regarding the escaped Hannibal Lecter emerges. 

Dr. Lecter wasn't her psychiatrist for long, but Margot still thinks it is vain for Freddie to believe herself important enough to be a potential victim. 

10 PM. Freddie's own car is parked behind the motel, in a spot that Margot assumes she had to barter for with the owner, or at least give him some gruesome details explaining why she is in "hiding", and why she cannot risk her car being seen; when Margot arrived, about twenty minutes ago, she drove a circle around the motel after failing to find Freddie's car with the rest. 

Room 18B, on the second floor of this modest little structure. Margot emerges, climbs up the creaking steps. Today she's wearing flats; it means that she and Freddie will stand at an even closer height than before. In her mind, this is symbolic. 

But she knows why she is here. It's little more than a carnal desire. 

(She wants to believe.) 

Freddie Lounds opens the door carefully, wet hair evident immediately and her makeup-free face peering out tentatively before she realizes the figure shrouded in shadowy, fading lightbulb darkness is none other than Margot. 

The door is opened completely then, revealing Freddie's surprisingly modest cotton pajamas. She looks out of her element dressed like this, and even more so considering the sleek maroon turtleneck and tight black slacks that Margot has paired with an argyle coat that very well may have cost more than Freddie makes in a year, living off her writing and — exploitations. 

One could argue that her writing _is_ exploitation. 

"So," Freddie says, "did you get...lonely again?"

"In a sense." 

Then Freddie steps back and gestures for Margot to enter, which she does. The room is small, it fits one bed and a small TV. The bathroom is on the furthest end, and Margot can see and hear the sink that Freddie left running, opening the door in lieu of turning it off first. The bed is undone, and there are wet towels on the floor.

"If you give me a minute, I can get dressed and we can go grab coffee. Or a drink, if you've got an objection to caffeine at this time." It pleases Margot to see Freddie flustered, so terribly at her wit's end. 

"I'm not particularly interested in going out," says Margot, her voice sounding bored enough to rile Freddie up — a bit. "It's too quiet around here for my taste. Too much law enforcement hanging about for people to feel like they can be honest." 

"I took you for the type that favors isolation." Freddie crosses her arms slowly over her breasts, her nipples having risen in the cold and pressing hastily against the soft white material. Margot only looks out of the corner of her left eye as she runs a finger along the spine of a book sitting on the nightstand. _The Tragedy of Julius Caesar._ "Your farm is the very picture of serene." 

"Did you ever think yourself a poet, Freddie?" Margot has picked up the book now. It's a cheap mass market copy with an actor on the front. She can't tell whom the actor is meant to portray, but she would like to believe that it is Cassius. 

"They told me I wasn't very good at it." The way Freddie says that is very matter-of-fact, unabashed and shameless. Margot — Margot, well, loves it. "So I gave it up and focused on what I _could_ do. Journalism." 

"Sometimes giving up is the best route." 

"Well, I certainly have never allowed myself to make a habit of it."

"That's not a surprise." The front page says _Jen Lounds_ on it, written in a crisp cursive. Margot presses her lips together in curiosity but decides that she won't ask. Not right now. Maybe not ever. "And for the record, I don't like isolation. I'm just used to it. You could say that it's something out of which I _have_ made a habit." 

"Is this you trying to break that habit?"

Margot ponders, shrugs. "I guess." 

She puts the book down and moves closer to Freddie, but not close enough to reveal anything. 

"Will you make me some of that shitty hotel coffee you have there?"

Freddie smiles weakly, her semi-chapped lips curving like they have no choice. "Sure." 

While she plugs in the old machine and sets everything up, fiddling with the paper cups that won't come apart for whatever reason, Margot sits down on the corner of the bed. She isn't cold, not underneath her layers, but inside she feels chilled anyway. That's how apprehension is, really. They'll tell you that it feels hot, that it feels like burning; Margot's fears have always felt like ice against her skin. 

"You're the kind of girl that rereads Shakespeare," Margot says aloud, though she is just as much talking to herself as she is talking to Freddie. "Why does that add so much to my perception of you?"

"Your private school education and nurtured elitist tendencies must be making an appearance." The word _elitist_ makes Margot scoff, but good-humoredly. There's a lilting taste of a tease in Freddie's voice. 

"I can't claim that my tastes are very scholarly. I was never a romantic, but I liked _Romeo and Juliet_. It made sense to me, because they were young and dumb and so many of my classmates were young and dumb. I never fit in with them, never could empathize, but I could understand." 

"The historical plays were the ones I enjoyed most." Freddie's back is still to her, angled shoulder bones a little tense. "My father was a historian. He had an impact. By the time I was seven, I could summarize the ten Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights and recite the Gettysburg Address. He took pride in our ancestry because they fought for the North."

"History is refreshing because it's already set in stone. There's nothing to plan or predict."

Freddie is pouring the coffee now. "It's endearing to picture you as a young, astute schoolgirl. Do you take cream and sugar with your coffee?"

"Just a hint of sugar, but a gratuitous amount of cream." 

When Freddie hands her the paper cup, Margot lets her stubbed fingernails drift over Freddie's cold fingers. The other woman raises an eyebrow, just slightly, but otherwise does not react. 

A minute or two passes in silence as the pair sips the steaming coffee. It's surprisingly bitter — not weak like Margot had expected — in a good way, the kind of way that burns away the chill in Margot's throat and refreshes her nerves with its heat. She catches her reflection in Freddie's open but off laptop, her loose waves slipping every which way over the sweater's material. Not like when Freddie had first arrived a few days at Muskrat Farm and Margot's hair had been pulled into a tight, austere updo. 

"Will Graham told me about your relationship with the Hobbs girl."

Freddie's gulp is tougher, she swallows like her throat has suddenly narrowed. "You want to know my grief now that I know yours?"

"It's not like that. I'm just more and more curious about you each day." 

Margot catches the odd shift in Freddie's stance, like she's nervous now. Surprised, even. "I don't really know what to say to you, Margot. I didn't think you would be interested in actually contacting me again. You said your peace."

"Maybe I did, and maybe now I have more to say."

With a moment's trepidation, Freddie steps back from her spot in front of Margot and places her half-empty cup next to her laptop on the desk. 

Margot asks, "Will you take mine, too?"

Coffee-free, Margot stands up and steps forward like she did before, only this time it is closer. Freddie's eyes are wide, have been wide since Margot's fingers draped over her own minutes ago. She steps back further, her rump hitting the back of the desk chair. Then she meets Margot's eyes properly, and they hold the gaze as if this is a competition. Who will scare off the other first? Neither is willing to surrender and Margot is impatient. She reaches out and runs a hand over the exposed skin of Freddie's neck. The hitch in the other woman's breath is her consent, and then Margot moves in to press her mouth to that skin. She feels Freddie's hand move over her back like a ghost.

Margot knows. She feels it. Freddie is scared that if she touches her too harshly, this will come to an end. 

She is not mistaken, or without good reason. 

But for Margot, the sweetness is being the one who can _push_ hard like this. She isn't even kissing Freddie's neck properly, just letting her mouth rest there for a moment. She scrapes her teeth over the nape and Freddie's fingers twitch on her back. When she finally kisses the tooth-scraped skin, a little pink and a little outraged, Freddie breathes out, "Margot."

It sounds like, _Oh my god_.

She keeps on kissing at Freddie's neck, persistent and reckless with the way she bites. Of course there will be marks. They will be purplish and ghastly, and if Margot stays the night then she will be in awe when she sees them in proper lighting, in the sunlight. Her hands twist and pull at Freddie's curls like they are all that are keeping her feet tied to the ground. She licks at the traumatized spot and pulls away, hands still entwined in hair, eyes locked again except that now Freddie's eyes are half-lidded and Margot knows that her own eyes look insane by a moderate amount. 

It's Freddie that tries it, which surprises Margot enough that she releases Freddie's hair and stumbles backwards away from Freddie's closed eyes and pursed lips. 

"I'm sorry," Margot says at the same time as Freddie sputters her own apology. 

Margot looks down, catches her breath. "I was surprised." 

They move closer naturally, Margot burying her face in Freddie's neck so that she doesn't have to face her confused, helpless look. 

She tells Freddie, mouth moving against the woman's shoulder, "Undress me."

"Is that alright?"

"I'm asking for it, aren't I?"

Her words are heeded then, the still cold hands pulling the coat over Margot's shoulders and letting it fall, then pulling at the hem of Margot's turtleneck until it can be pulled over her head. The cold air hits Margot's stomach like a punch. She takes hold of Freddie's hands and moves them down to the zipper of her slacks. Freddie laughs a little at the eagerness, but with a fumble of her fingers she has the pants loose for Margot to kick off from around the pool of fabric gathering together about her ankles. Her shoes come off with them. 

Then Freddie's fingers trace a line over Margot's hips, and she finds herself shuddering. Her scars are still present, red and white angry messes, and the new self-inflicted wound from the bullet on her thigh is something Freddie's eyes skim for a half-second before she looks back at Margot's face.

It isn't time to be touched, though. 

"Undress yourself." 

"No help, hmm?"

"I want to watch you."

Those words do _something_ to Freddie because the reaction is instant, her pale cheeks reddening slightly. 

As Freddie pulls her shirt over her shirt, Margot says, "Do I make you nervous?"

Freddie's response is shaky. There's a laugh in it. "What do you think?"

Her pajama pants come off then and they both stand there with bare feet, clad only in their underwear, for a prolonged moment before Margot slowly tangles her fingers in Freddie's hair again; she pulls her forward slowly and it hurts because Freddie only moves when Margot lets her move. When Margot pulls her, never forcing it. 

Margot kisses Freddie. It's close-mouthed, soft, a slow dance. Freddie moans into it and that's what makes their mouths fall open, what makes Margot dig into her tongue into the other woman's mouth until she can twist it around another tongue. 

She wants to be able to tell her that she is not glass. She is not fragile, and she will not fall apart like a worn antique piece if Freddie pushes too much. 

The problem with this is that she would be lying. 

"I never told you I was into women," accuses Freddie when they pull apart from the languid kiss. 

"I was hoping."

"You came to my hotel room at 10 PM based on hope?"

"I've been taking leaps of faith lately. I took one the other day, actually, when I laid my heart out for a journalist you may know."

"Oh, shush." But Freddie's smile is genuine. "Can I kiss you?"

"You — you don't have to ask again, now." Margot closes her eyes, feels Freddie come closer. "I'm okay. I'm calm."

"Mmm." Freddie licks at Margot's bottom lip before kissing her and it makes Margot shudder, her hands moving down to trace circles on Freddie's back. 

"Go to the bed," Margot says, her words emitted on Freddie's mouth, "and lie down. Face down." 

The woman complies, looking a little dazed and a little perplexed. But they're both so turned on, Margot knows, that Freddie might do just about anything at this point. It hadn't occurred to her that Freddie would be this submissive, this quiet and gentle. Maybe she usually isn't. Maybe it's just how she's reacting to Margot. 

She loves the sight of Freddie like this. 

Crawling over the woman on the bed, Margot dips her head down and kisses the back of Freddie's neck after pushing her red mane of curls off to the side. She lazily moves her hands over the sensitive skin on Freddie's back, scraping her fingernails. Her kisses trail down, down, down until her lips meet the hem of Freddie's white panties.

"Lift your hips a bit."

Freddie does, and Margot pulls her underwear off. She kisses down the dip of Freddie's back all the way her ass, kneading the flesh with both hands in such a way that Freddie gasps contentedly. 

"Margot—"

"Turn around, Freddie." 

Once they're properly facing each other, Margot lifts her legs and hips, maneuvers, and removes her own black panties and underwear. 

"Black, Margot? I thought I was the presumptuous one here."

"You want to end this?"

Freddie chuckles. "As if."

"Take that bra off."

So Freddie sits up slightly, and Margot helps her unclip the back so that it can slide off from the front. Properly naked, Margot pulls Freddie towards her until she is sitting up, her back pushed against the massive amount of pillows. A passing thought lingers over Margot: Freddie, pompous and pristine, probably requested additional pillows because she's just that way. Thoughts of pillows aside, Margot's head falls down to lick at Freddie's right breast, the hard flesh there soft and warm. Freddie sighs, her left hand twining into Margot's loose hair. 

"God, I love your hair like this."

Margot responds by saying, "Lie down flat again."

"I haven't had anyone give me this many orders since I moved away from home."

But she does, of course, listen. Freddie is short enough, and the bed is long enough, that she can very easily lie flat without having to prop her head on any pillows. 

She's wet. With just one hand, Margot touches Freddie where the desire hurts the most and Freddie twitches. 

It's been awhile. Two years. 

Well, Freddie knows that.

There's hair there, a tangled mess like the one on Freddie's head. Margot takes a minute. Soaks it in. Freddie is thinner than Margot, her bones visible everywhere. It doesn't look unhealthy, it just looks obvious. Her hip bones in particular — Margot thinks that if she pressed against them too hard, they would cut her. She sighs and kisses Freddie's stomach, then kisses both of her thighs, licks over her thighs, her eyes shut when she positions herself in such a way that her legs fall off the bed at the knee, but she is between Freddie's legs and that's all that really matters. 

It's all that really matters for the rest of the night, when Freddie yells her name loud enough for nearby tenants to hear; it's all that matters when Margot hesitates at Freddie moving to hang over her, and Freddie understands, and she pulls Margot over her, shows her how good it can feel when you're on top. 

Later, when the midnight moon hits her sweating face and swollen nipples, Margot realizes that this is the first time she has not felt like the hands touching her belong to someone very recently murdered. 

 

 

_**we are at times masters of our fate**  _

 

 

Freddie Lounds is mercury. 

Margot has never been this desperate to be burned. 

"Freddie," says Margot, somewhat in awe. It's well past noon but she has only just woken up to the dreary gray skies that Virginia likes to wear when it's winter once again. "You're beautiful."

Her response is a light snore. 

For the most part, Margot doesn't think much of the fact that she stands up without a second thought and puts her tossed panties on, quietly shuffles around to find her bra. It's when she's about to pull her slacks on that she stops, and it hits her that she doesn't have to leave. 

She could stay. This may never go anywhere, but at least she wouldn't be thinking _what if_ whenever someone with a mane of red hair moves past her at a crowded shop or a pair of angular cheekbones smiles at her from across the street. It embarrasses her to think that the possibility of staying is there, but it is. Margot is bashful when the morning comes, when the arousal loosening her inhibitions has been satisfied and shrunken down to near nothing. She's not aroused right now, not being driven wild by Freddie's naked body still splayed out on the sheets. The world is too quiet and she cannot breathe because she could stay and that terrifies her. 

_I still don't want you as a vessel._

_But I could want you as an anchor._

Just one more leap of faith. She's taken so many already. What's one more?

She shakes her head, looks back at the nude woman who is still in deep slumber. 

A leap of faith. 

Margot takes it. She stays. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> cheers to the little femslash nook of the hannibal fandom! 
> 
> the chapter titles are quotes/rephrased quotes from shakespeare's _julius caesar_ because that's what i was into when i was fifteen, i guess. 
> 
> title is from sufjan steven's "the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us" — [listen to it because it is a good song ok.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBMwwJMkcRA)
> 
> i have a few more hannibal fic drafts to edit/finish and am considering publication so...updates on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/queerchilton) and [tumblr](http://www.ishervvood.tumblr.com).


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